Varnette Honeywood is a nationally recognized
artist who has successfully owned and managed a mail order art
business "Black Lifestyles" for 15 years, marketing
her paintings, limited and open edition prints and note cards
and several other African American artists. She has illustrated
several books and provided artwork for book covers. Her work
has been used in numerous television sets, most notably "The
Bill Cosby Show". She is collected by established art collectors
in North America. and is a much sought after speaker, as she
inspires a new generation of artists. Honeywood has a Masters
of Education from the University of Southern California.

Throughout the 20th century, African American artists
have used their creative powers to document and celebrate the
historical record of their people. In the process, they have
promoted an alternative perspective for younger generations
harmed by stereotypical images of black life pervading American
popular culture. For many decades following the Harlem Renaissance,
a major approach to these objectives has involved genre paintings
depicting African Americans in a wide variety of activities
and settings. Cumulatively, these artworks have effectively
countered the racist legacy that has despoiled American history.

Following her graduation from Spelman College, Honeywood returned
to Los Angeles, where she obtained her masters degree in education
from the University of Southern California. For five years,
she worked at the Joint Educational Project, teaching art to
largely minority students and designing various multicultural
arts and crafts programs with her students. She also taught
art at the central Juvenile Hall, an experience she remembers
as extremely difficult. This background furthered her commitment
to young people, fortifying her desire to provide positive visual
images for black children, one of the central premises of her
entire artistic career.

Her visit to Nigeria in 1977 had a profound effect upon her
artistic work. Her African travels solidified her emotional
linkage to her own ancestors and reinforced her view that African
Americans must look to Africa as a source of identity, pride,
and creativity.

From 1978 to the present, she has collaborated with her sister
in creating and sustaining an art reproduction business based
on her own work. Together, they produce and distribute notecards,
posters, and similar products to the public, thereby ensuring
a substantial audience for Honeywood’s artwork.

A recurring theme in Honeywood’s work is the vibrancy
of black culture despite the barriers of racial oppression.
Her 1981 watercolor entitled “Club Alabam: Down at the
Dunbar” (Figure 2) combines strong composition, striking
color, and significant historical content. The time frame of
the painting dates from the 1940s, based on her parents’
vivid memories of their own young adulthood. A visual statement
of the black lifestyle of the period, the effort highlights
Central Avenue in Los Angeles, then the center of a thriving
African American community. For Honeywood’s parents and
thousands of others, Central Avenue was the place to congregate,
the West Coast counterpart to the busy streets of New York’s
Harlem. As the work reveals, people strolled the avenue, savoring
the multiple delights of food, music, dance, and human conviviality.

In 1991, Varnette Honeywood produced a painting that simultaneously
acknowledged the value of her own college education and the
continuing vitality of historically black colleges generally.
“The Groundbreaking” commemorates the new Camille
Cosby Academic Center at Spelman College, a generous gift from
Bill and Camille Cosby that houses the Art Museum, the Women’s
Center, and the Library. Used as the cover for the Spelman Alumni
News Magazine, the work depicts, from left to right, Camille
Cosby, Spelman President Johnnetta Cole, the project architect,
the chair of the Board of Trustees, a Spelman student, and Bill
Cosby. Each participant in the ceremony is justifiably proud
of the broader accomplishments of the college in providing education
and opportunity for generations of African American students.
That message has intimate personal significance for the artist,
for without her own experiences at Spelman, she would not have
achieved the well deserved professional artistic recognition
she presently enjoys.

For centuries, the principle of “Kuumba” has enabled
African Americans to work diligently to correct the regrettable
misimpressions about their history, their culture, and their
very humanity. Creative orators, political organizers, writers,
artists, scholars, and many others over the years have used
their talents to offer more realistic accounts of the black
experience. The visual arts continue to play a powerful role
in this process. Varnette Honeywood has undertaken the responsibility
to extend the tradition of visual social commentary. Her purposeful
and empathetic dedication to the rituals, traditions, hopes,
and frustrations of her people assures her reputation as an
artist of remarkable distinction and visibility.

-- By Paul Von Blum
Paul Von Blum teaches art and is the author of Critical Vision
(South End Press). He acknowledges support for this article
from the UCLA Institute of American Cultures and the Center
for African American Studies.